


In the Hands of One Like Me

by donutsweeper



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Friends to Lovers, Missing Scene, NPT Treat, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Steve Rogers Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-09
Updated: 2014-07-09
Packaged: 2018-02-07 18:19:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1908999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/donutsweeper/pseuds/donutsweeper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the search for one thing may have led Steve to something else entirely.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the Hands of One Like Me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tielan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tielan/gifts).



Great use they have, when in the hands  
Of one like me, who understands,  
 **-Charles Churchill** , _"The Ghost", 1762, Book IV, lines 1379-1380_  


* * *

The next time Steve wakes he discovers that Sam is gone and Maria is sitting in his place. "I sent him home," she says before Steve can do more than blink at her. "He was beginning to smell," she adds in a whisper, her tone part conspiracy and part joking.

"How long?" Steve begins, but his voice is rough and his throat scratchy and he has to break off to cough. Grimacing, he wraps his arm around his ribs; even with the serum it'll be a few days before he'll be healed up enough for that not to hurt.

"It's been seventeen hours since they found you on the shore. Twenty one since we took down Project Insight."

"Casualties?" he rasps. 

Maria looks away and that's when Steve knows that it was bad, really bad, and that she wishes he hadn't asked. She turns to grab a cup from the table beside his hospital bed, probably trying to hide her reaction, but it doesn't work because as she fills it he can see the tension in her frame and her slight frown. "Rescue efforts are still ongoing," she says as she offers the water to him. His hands shake as he leans forward and reaches for it though so she doesn't let go, instead holding it steady while he takes a long sip.

He may be far from his best at the moment, but he does recognize her careful non-answer for what it is, and there's not much he can say in response. If they couldn't stop the launch from happening, they knew they'd have to destroy the helicarriers and that it was going to be messy. Letting Project Insight come online would have been worse, much worse, and that kind of option was never on the table."The Winter Soldier?" he asks instead before taking another sip.

"Gone without a trace." 

"Nat get out okay?"

She nods. "Fury too. They followed the plan and left via the helicopter. Good thing, too, they wound up having to rescue Sam from the Triskelion right before the helicarrier crashed into it. I insisted he get himself checked out in case he was prone to hiding an injury but he was really, actually fine. Once he got the all-clear he was in the waiting room and then glued to this chair the moment you got out of surgery."

When Steve's drained the cup he nods and leans back against the pillow. "Thanks. And thanks for looking out for him." He can't help but feel that's supposed to be his job, but since he's out of commission for the moment, it's good someone's around to be picking up on his slack.

"He really came through for us. And don't worry, I've an agent watching him, just in case."

Steve gestures to the busy hallway outside his hospital room window and the armed guards that have been making themselves noticeable there. "Agents like them? I've been meaning to ask, are they there to protect me or to make sure I don't manage to sneak out of here without anyone knowing about it?" He can't keep the censure out of his voice. In fact, he doesn't even try.

She doesn't react to his tone; she doesn't even seem insulted or upset by his implication. She only responds, "You're not under guard. They're here for your protection. There are plenty of people out there who might try to take advantage of you being laid up and use this opportunity to make an attempt to kill or capture you. With recent events being what they are... Well, you have to admit, you made a lot of new enemies this week."

Steve snorts and offers her a wry smile. "That's putting it mildly. It had to be done, though."

There's a second when a look flitters across her face, too quickly for Steve to put a name to it. She controls her emotions and prevents it from taking hold, but he sees as her lips purse momentarily and her eyes blink furiously. He knows she's poured a lot of herself into S.H.I.E.L.D. through the years; finding the truth about how it's had Hydra growing within it all this time and then having to take it down has to have hurt. "Yeah, it did," she says after a moment, and he can tell that the admission isn't easy for her. "But you don't have to worry about the agents on your detail or the ones on Sam. I vetted them all myself; they're loyal."

"Loyal to what?" He probably shouldn't ask, shouldn't push, but he's tired and hurting in a lot of different ways and he does anyway.

"Not what. Who. In this case, Fury. Or me, I guess, since most people still think he's dead. To you too, of course, and what you've always stood for. What S.H.I.E.L.D. was _supposed_ to be standing for this whole time."

Quirking an eyebrow at that, Steve asks, "And what's that?"

"Keeping those with power from wielding it in ways that they shouldn't. Standing up for people who have no one to stand up for them and no way to do it for themselves. Doing what's right, what needs to be done."

"And how are they going to do that without S.H.I.E.L.D. behind them?"

"They'll find a way. We'll find a way." She sounds sure of herself, but sad, which makes sense, given the way things have turned out. "But that's a conversation for a different time and place. Not in the hospital at the bedside of a man who's just had major surgery."

"And what about you? What are you going to do now?" 

"I'm going to go work for Stark."

"Stark. Tony Stark? Really?" That doesn't seem like a match made in heaven to Steve. Far from it, actually. As far as he's aware Maria and Tony have never quite gotten along. They're not adversaries per se, but a bit like oil and water, they just aren't the type to mix together very well. She's always been serious about the job and the work they do and Tony is almost inherently incapable of taking anything seriously at all.

"Stark Industries, to be technical about it. Not Stark himself." She gives a soft snort as she shakes her head. "I'm not that masochistic."

"Didn't say that you were."

"No, but you were thinking it!" Maria says, pointing an accusatory finger. 

It takes Steve an absurdly long time to realize she's teasing him, but when he does his protest dies on his lips. He smiles instead and is relieved to see that he gets one in return. He's not sure what to say then, and silence settles between them. 

"It was really touch and go with you when they first brought you in," she says eventually and reaches out to grab his hand. "I'm glad you're going to be okay, Steve. When you ordered me to fire...." she breaks off.

"You did what had to be done; sometimes that's the hardest thing one can ask of a person. I know it won't help for me to say but you shouldn't think on it too much. Besides, I bounce back quickly. I'll be back on my feet before you know it," he says, shifting to sit a little further up the bed and squeezing her hand as he moves. "What about you?"

Her face lights up and gives him a big grin."I bounce back pretty quickly myself."

"Glad to hear it."

"You should get some rest," she suggests. 

"You too," he says, but then winces because without meaning to it came out like an order. "Sorry," he starts to try to explain. "It's just- I look after my men. Agents. People. I mean people. Not that you're mine!" he adds quickly. "I mean." He gives up then and shakes his head as he huffs, half in disbelief and half annoyance at himself.

She laughs, bright and carefree, and some of the stress she's been carrying seems to slide off as she does. Squeezing his hand, she leans in a little. "If I was a lesser person, I'd just sit here and watch you dig yourself deeper and deeper, but being as I'm above that sort of thing-" She lets the statement hang for a second and he jumps in,

"Which I am thankful for. Very thankful." 

"I'm just going to say that I can't imagine there are many people out there who would object to having Captain America look after them." Her voice drops just a bit, as if she's admitting something that's for his ears, and his ears alone. "Although, I think I prefer Steve Rogers, myself. Captain America is great, the embodiment if everything we all strive to be, but Steve is real and the kind of person one wants to call a friend."

"A friend?" he asks, and he thinks she might be implying something deeper than that, but he's so tired and achy, he's not sure.

"Oh, yes," she says and her smiles turns... the only word Steve can think of is feral. "If not something more."

"I," he starts, but trails off because he's so exhausted really not sure he's reading the situation right.

"Sleep," she says, just shy of an order. "We'll talk later when you're a little more together and not recovering from just having had major surgery."

He wants to continue the conversation now, but his eyes close of their own volition and when he wakes up again Maria is gone and Sam's back and a song about the eye of a tiger is blaring from his iPod. There's a note for him though, tucked under his glass that reads " _Keep in touch. ~M_ " with a phone number in S.H.I.E.L.D. code scribbled on the bottom. Sam doesn't say anything when Steve not only programs the number into his phone, but folds the note up and slips it into his back pocket when they're getting ready to leave the next morning.

He doesn't want to push though, especially since he's not sure if he was only hearing what he wanted to hear in their last conversation. Other than a quick, " _Out of the hospital. At Sam's if you need me. ~Steve_ " text, he doesn't contact Maria right away. She does send a reply, telling him she's at the New York offices of Stark Industries and to let her know if he needs help searching for Bucky. 

Considering he hadn't mentioned the search to her, her knowing what he's planning either says something about how easy he is to read or how well she knows him. He finds himself hoping it is the latter, not the former.

Using bits of intel cobbled together from various contacts and less than legal channels, Steve and Sam take off for South Dakota the following Monday and Steve sends Maria the coordinates of their destination; having someone in the loop in case they need backup is only being sensible, after all. Or at least that's what he tells himself.

They don't find Bucky there, but they do discover an abandoned Hydra factory hidden behind cloaking technology smack in the middle of the Black Hills. With no idea what to do and unsure if leveling it will make it visible, Steve calls Maria for suggestions. Thankfully, she has contacts who can 'take care of it' and then she tells them of a Winter Soldier sighting in Tripoli. Unfortunately, they arrive there too late and the presumed target, a weapons cache, is a smoking crater. By the time Steve can pick up Bucky's trail, it leads to an airport and a stolen Cessna.

Tips and sightings keep coming in and Steve and Sam barely have a chance to get a full night's sleep before they're off to Moldova for what turns out to be a wasted trip. They spend a week there, doing research and gathering information before anything vaguely worthwhile comes to them and it's a quick hop to Odessa to mop up the mess made by an explosion at a Hydra laboratory there. Kyrgyzstan is next, then Belarus, Nunavut, Peru, and then Attu Island. 

They work almost seamlessly together. Despite having had very different training. Sam always defers to Steve for the planning, only offering insight when it comes to his area of expertise, the sky. For example, when they're planning on raiding a base in the Catskills, Sam takes one look at Slide Mountain and says, "No."

"What do you mean, no?"

"You're going to want me on air support while you beat everyone up on the ground, right?"

After gaping like a fish for a moment, Steve protests, "I don't beat everyone up!" which just gets him one of Sam's patented glares. Glare Fourteen to be precise. The _'It's a good thing you live up to your reputation most of the time, hero boy, because right now, that's all that's stopping me from calling you an idiot'_ glare.

Sadly, it's not Sam's worst or most annoying glare. The least he thinks about Glare Seven, the better.

"I respond with appropriate force. Would it be better if I just shot everyone?" That gets him Accepting Nod Three With Raised Eyebrow. Point taken and approved of.

"Even so, this bit here," Sam says as he points to the map where Steve is laying out the plan, "it's not going to work since I'm going to have to adjust for the down drafts and the extra burn I'll need... Here." - grabbing the pencil out of Steve's hand, Sam starts to sketch over Steve's work, "see, if we come from this direction-" and then they're off, throwing ideas around and working off one another like any two soldiers. 

There's plenty of downtime in between destinations and he spends it chatting with Sam (once he gets through attempting to apologize to Sam for sort of swooping in and taking over his life- Sam kept trying to convince him there was nothing to apologize for but Steve still felt guilty), doing research and texting back and forth with Maria. He even has a chance to call her a few times when their schedules match up. It's... surprisingly nice to sit on the balcony of some hotel drinking a beer and watching the sunset while she's in New York eating a bagel and having her morning coffee and they're just discussing something as mundane as the weather or if the way the Centerfire 700 makes it easy to police one’s brass makes it worth its kick.

Whenever Sam overhears them, he just rolls his eyes and mutters something to the effect of, "Only you, Rogers. Only you." But he always refuses to explain what he means by that.

Natasha meets up with them on and off; she just appears in an alley they're cutting through or sits down in the empty seat next to them on a train. Originally, it's a bit startling, but they get used to it after the first time or two and it's always nice to run into her. She and Sam get along great, and Steve is happy to see how much more comfortable in her own skin Nat is every time they see her. 

"Get a large for me." Steve just about jumps out of his skin when suddenly she's whispering in his ear as he's standing in line to buy popcorn at the cinema.

"With extra butter and salt?" The theater they're at is famous for using 'old-fashioned' poppers and real butter on their popcorn (In order words, preparing it properly) so Steve isn't missing the opportunity to see a movie here since he and Sam are in town. 

"Of course." She holds out a ticket stub so he can see it's for the same movie he and Sam came to see. "How to Train your Dragon 2? Really, Rogers?"

"Sam likes all the flying," he explains but he can tell she doesn't believe him for a moment. 

And if he notices she's smiling whenever he looks her way? Well, he knows better than to say anything about it.

Eventually Natasha and Maria tag team him and Steve begins to face the fact that if Bucky doesn't want to be found he won't be, so there's little to nothing to be gained by running around the globe chasing shadows and rumors other than wearing he and Sam out. Steve wants to argue to continue the search, but, despite Sam's insistence he is fine and he doesn't mind the upheaval and chaos, he can't help but notice that Sam is starting to look a little ragged around the edges. Add to that the fact that Steve himself has started to lose track of what time zone they're in and what meal he's supposed to be eating when.... Well, maybe they have a point.

"It's your call, man," Sam insists while Natasha glares at them both.

"No one is saying to give up looking for him completely, Steve. We're just suggesting," Maria starts, but Steve has heard enough and been through enough to concede the point. 

"I know," he sighs.

"It's not giving up." Nat says from her perch on the armchair in the corner. "It's withdrawing to gather intel and extrapolate better sourced conclusions. We will locate the target, but it's unlikely to happen this way."

"He's a friend, not a target." Steve's voice is soft; it's not an admonishment for Natasha's choice of wording since he knows she's just looking out for their best interests, but it still bothers him to think about what Bucky did when he wasn't himself - before becoming Bucky again. That's all he says at the moment, though. The others will see Bucky as they see him and there's nothing Steve can do about that. For the moment he puts that aside to deal with the matter at hand, giving up the search. "But maybe we do need to go about it a different way if we're going to find him."

"So we head home?" Sam asks. There's no judgment there. There never is from Sam, and Steve will never not be grateful that they wound up crossing paths that morning during their runs. Things may have, _would_ have, worked out a lot differently if Sam hadn't been there to have his back - unexpectedly and unwaveringly - ever since that day they showed up battered and bruised at his back door.

"Yeah. Yeah, we do. You can finally get back to the work you were doing at the VA."

Sam slides into his personal space then and grabs Steve's shoulders. "It's been an honor, Steve. Working with you; fighting by your side. I'd do it again in a heartbeat, sooner than that even, if you need me. Wherever. Whenever. You know that, right?"

He can barely feel the pressure as Sam squeezes, but the sense of peace and comfort the action gives him is a balm to what is left of his apprehension at the idea at abandoning the search. "I just realized I'm going to have to find a new apartment. Probably?" Steve sighs. Ballistics and blood don't make for easy cleaning. And then there's the broken window.... He' s done a little work fixing it up between trips, but he's never had the time to do more than preventing it from becoming a biohazard in his absence.

There's a moment of silence before Maria asks, "Are you planning on staying in D.C.?"

"Well, I have to, I have a..." Steve begins but then corrects himself before any of the others can do it for him. "Huh. I don't have a job that requires me to be there anymore, do I?"

"Nope." Natasha smiles as she says it, the 'p' popping obnoxiously in the quiet of the room.

Something must have showed on his face then because Sam gives him one more squeeze. "You could always go with that Ultimate Fighting suggestion of mine," he jokes before pinning Steve with a serious look. "You've had to have, what? A million requests for public appearances? Commencement addresses, motivational speaking, historical interviews, news commentating, the list goes on and on. And if you don't want to be in the public eye there's always your autobiography to write, or a history on the battles you fought in or, I don't know." Sam throws his hands in the air. "Go back to school. Write a children's book. Take a year off to meditate. There's a whole world out there, Cap, and you can do whatever you want in it."

"Or, I could make you look good to the girl at the front desk and visit you at the VA," he says, thinking back on their conversation that first day.

"There's always that," Sam replies. When he reaches around Steve to grab his jacket he tilts his head to the phone with a _get on with it_ look. "I'm going to run down to the machine and pick up some snacks and sodas. Bye, Maria," he calls to the phone plugged into the speaker on the table before heading to the door, stopping in the doorway to offer a quick, "Back in a bit," to Natasha and Steve.

Steve nods at Sam and then carefully locks the door behind him. They have no reason to think anyone would try anything, but Steve's always found it doesn't hurt to be extra careful. "What about you, Maria?" 

The phone crackles slightly, like she's shifted it closer to her ear or something, and a few seconds pass before she replies, "There's a few things I'd like to go over with you face to face at some point, but there's no pressing timeline to any of it."

"You're not going to try to talk me into working for Tony, are you? Because, Stark's a good guy and all, but-"

"No, believe me, Steve, I'm the last person who'd try to recruit anyone, especially you, to work for Stark Industries. Besides, you wouldn't need me to put in a good word for you in order to get a job there. No, there are some things I thought we could talk about and discussions on the phone can be a little impersonal, don't you think?"

"Ah, yes," Steve says, nodding even though he knows she can't see him. After all, phone lines can be hacked, bugs can be planted, and lips can be read. The only safe conversation is one where you can control all the variables and that's only possible when you meet in a completely preplanned, secure location. "You're still based in the City?"

"For the foreseeable future."

"I'll see what I can do." It's all he can offer. While the current plan is to give up the search for Bucky, that could change at a moment's notice if the right (or wrong) bit of intel comes through. He's also finding himself floundering a little without any direction or sense of purpose for the first time since before the War. He's not sure why Maria wants to see him or what she'll want to discuss, but it's possible she has a mission for him - either from Nick Fury, or one of her own - and while he doesn't think it's likely he'll find that sort of focus anywhere else, he's also not really positive he wants it. He's not in the army anymore- he doesn't have to follow orders. Maybe it's time to find his own path for a little while? 

Maybe?

Or maybe not. Maria has been nothing but helpful in his search for Bucky and she has answered the phone every time he's called her, even when he's misjudged time zones and it's the middle of the night. It's not that he feels obligated or that he owes her, but he likes to think they've become pretty good friends these past few months and, as a friend, he wants to help her out if it's in his power to do so. And there's still that feeling he got in the hospital to consider and if that is somehow related to her request.

He turns to Natasha. "You still working on what you need to?" 

She meets his eye for a moment before looking away, lips pursed tight. "I am."

Steve waits a moment in case she's going to say anything else, but she doesn't, and he supposes he can understand why. "Need help?" he asks eventually, since he's fairly certain that even as close as they've come since the hit on Fury, she still wouldn't ask because it would be admitting a need, admitting that she wasn't completely self sufficient anymore.

"Thanks for the offer, but this is really something I need to do by myself." She tucks her feet under her, making herself impossibly small while still exuding strength by the straightness of her back and steely gaze. 

"If that ever changes...." He lets the sentence hang, knowing she'll hear the sincerity in it. Her half-nod and smile combo is just enough that he thinks she might consider asking for his help if she really needed it. Maybe. Or at least he hopes she would.

He's still mulling over everything after Maria signs off and continues to do so while accepting a friendly peck on the cheek followed by a gruff "Stay safe, Rogers," from Natasha as she leaves. It works itself around and around in his mind all night, to the point he gives up the pretense of sleeping to pull out his sketchbook and slip outside so he won't wake Sam. There's not much around so he perches on the hood of the old Zil Sam dug up from somewhere for their transportation, pulls out his pencil and looks up at the sky.

There's so much smog and light pollution there's not a lot in the way of stars to see; in a way it reminds him of the times before the War when he and Bucky would sneak out onto the roof with a bottle of whatever was cheapest and spend half the night there - Bucky, always a talker, would spin long and complicated tales of his latest conquests while Steve would spend the hours drawing - before either the cold or Steve's coughing would send them back inside. Steve had nothing then, just Bucky and a little skill with the pencil, but now he has a slew of people who have his back and look out for him. 

Steve still finds Sam's reaction to him a combination of mindboggling and humbling, mostly because he realized early on that while it was the Captain America persona that had drawn Sam's attention at first, it was the Steve Rogers side of him that resulted in the desire to follow him. He supposes it should remind him of Bucky's declaration of support for that kid from Brooklyn who wouldn't back down from a fight, but it doesn't. It is outright earned respect and desire to fight the good fight that has kept Sam at his side, even when he had been fruitlessly chasing shadows around the world. Natasha, meanwhile has moved from a comrade at arms to a friend and Maria....

Steve really has no idea what's going on with Maria. 

Or, more precisely, what's going on between Maria and him. 

It is only when he looks down at his drawing that he realizes he's sketched the sweep of her hair into the covered sky and her hand reaching in from just out of frame. It's the amount of detail in the fingers which makes him think that maybe he really does need to stop in New York and see what she wants to talk to him about and it might be better to do it sooner instead of later.

Three days later, he finds himself flying into JFK instead of Dulles, having said his goodbyes to Sam back in France, and grabbing the subway to midtown once he clears customs. An exchange of texts has assured him that Maria is not only in town, but also free after work this evening, so he makes his way to the small coffee bistro she suggested and, since it's only a little after five, he orders himself a cappuccino while he waits.

After an hour he's regretting having sent most of his things to Sam's, because he has only a small backpack with clothes, a few art supplies, and his shield with him, and he's bored out of his mind. He skims through the news sites on his phone one by one and then reads the paper copy of The New York Times that someone left on the table next to him. Solving the sudoku was easy, but he's found he never has much luck with the crossword puzzles anymore, there are too many cultural references and he's always been adamant that looking up anything was cheating so he doesn't even try. He's spent close to twenty minutes trying to find/create a code out of the obits when Maria finally appears, managing to stride confidently through the door while still scoping the restaurant for potential targets.

Rising, he greets her with a warm smile. "Maria," he says as he walks around the table to pull out her chair, "thank you for meeting me."

She smiles that half-smile of hers and offers him the slightest shake of her head. "Always such a gentleman, Rogers," she says in regards to what he considers normal politeness and consideration. He knows it's no longer commonplace to pull out a chair, or hold open a door, but he's not about to stop. His mother ingrained in him those actions and he can't stand the thought of disrespecting her, or any woman today, by not abiding by them. "And I should be the one thanking you. After all, you're here on my request."

"It's not a hardship to visit a friend." He gathers up the paper as he sits down, folding it and dropping it on the table to his left.

"And we are friends, aren't we?" she asks, but there's a glint to her eye when she says it and suddenly things are a whole lot clearer. It's strange, when he thinks about it, because for all the people Natasha tried to set him up with she never once suggested Maria. Although, technically, Maria had been his commanding officer, kind of, so he'd never have considered it even if she had, but still. Natasha isn't blind, and she is ridiculously intuitive. She must have recognized Maria's interest for what it is, mustn't she?

"Yes. Of course," he responds, and once he's seated he rests his hands on the table instead of his lap. When he thinks back on it, she took his hand in the hospital, and while he'd assumed it was just a combination of friendly concern and general worry, but perhaps it was something more than that. So he tests his theory by placing his hands close to hers on the small table. "Absolutely," he adds when he sees her start to reach out but then clench her hand, like she's having to fight with herself not to touch him. "If not something more."

And then he smiles because she strokes his hand, running the knuckles up and down the back of his hand before extending her index finger to stroke the sensitive skin on the inside of his wrist. "I like the idea of more." She returns the smile, but in a way that's filled with all the best kind of deviousness and she asks, "While we might have plenty of things to discuss, before we get to any of that I have to ask... Just how hungry are you?"

"I..." he begins, not quite following her logic.

"And would what you're hungry for be found here? Or, maybe it's something that's more likely to be found in a different setting, like at my place."

Normally this isn't the sort of thing Steve does. He's not one for casual sex, but he doesn't think that's what Maria is offering. It's not that he thinks they'll become sweethearts, at least not in the foreseeable future, but there's nothing in her expression that makes him think she's looking for random fling any more than he is. "I think your place sounds perfect."

"Well then, Captain. Shall we?" She's practically beaming as she stands and gestures to the door.

"We shall indeed."

"Good. Follow me."

"Yes, Ma'am," he replies. And when he gets up to follow her he thinks that he just might be willing to follow her anywhere.


End file.
